I just learned this in history class, the sphinx has no nose because napoleons army used it as target practice. thats all I know feel free to find links and post them. just an interesting fact.

yes, I read that a while back. Pretty sickening if you ask me.

I have also read that the rumor that nepolean's army defacing "pardon the pun" is false. I think all they know forsure is that it was done by vandel's. Damn fools.

I wonder what there reasoning was behind blowing it's nose off?

It was thought to have been originally carved into the likeness of Barbra Streisand. Naturally Napoleon could have none of this, even with antiquities. So it had to be done, you see...

Thats when the Pahrohs learned that cannons hurt.

it's an insult

I still love how the head is nice and crisp after being exposed, but the body shows wear after being covered up so long.

Found this on Wikipedia:



Source

Napoleon's Egyptian expedition was between 1798 and 1799, long after the nose was destroyed.

Would it help if you knew that Satanists believe the statue to be of one of the demons. I think its Satan. Aparently, Egyptians are Satanists across the language barrier.

maybe it reminded them of wellington hehehehe

but also napoleon was the first to give the go ahead to his scientists to start decyphring the hyroglifics so if it wasent for him we wouldent be this far in .
Also napoleon was very intrested in the pyramids visiting them very often and there is a rumour he was in the pyramid one night and had some kind of experence or happening he would not say what happend but he was suposdly a changed man coming out.

My history teacher said it was shot off In one Of The World Wars... Soilders Were using it as target practice...

perhaps they were attempting to make it look like michael jackson?

hehe, couldn't resist

Napoleon Dynamite?

vote for pedro

I can picture that. "Man Im so mad...Im gonna...destroy that things nose!"

diabolical

The nose got eroded by wind but others claim it was vandalised by locals who hated that Pharoe

I also heard that maybe Alexander the Great either purposely or accidentally destroyed the nose

I can't believe they teach that in history glass, Its totaly false sweetie...Thats not what happen Napoleon was a great fan of egypt and he took great pain's to have everything he seen wrote down in great detail, he even had his army dig the sand away from the great sphinx .. tell your teacher to use goggle before she feeds you kid's anymore BS.....

isis 999 is right, and i dont think the solders were such great shots to only hit nose, i mean they would completly destroy the face as well

Thats true beside they didn't have the ammo to waste during that time, The supplies had been cut off and they where killing people with knife's to save bullet's and canon ball's..

It's a sad fact that the history taught in schools is often shockingly inaccurate and outdated. Most teachers with a passion for history will have one or two areas of history they are particularly keen on, but the exigencies of the job mean that they have to be able teach almost complete world history. If they're not particularly up on ancient Egyptian history then they'll get it from a book. Their teaching is therefore only as good as the book or books they've read - and we all know how unreliable books can be at times.

Using Google would be no help to most teachers either - just look at how much BS there is on the web! As a source of misinformation the internet is second to none, it's quite likely the teacher got the Napoleon/nose information from the web in the first place.

It's sad, but it's true.

Well to them it might be like when someone vandilises a statue to us, not That a big deal. well, they did need to shoot at something !

Im a big music fan... i thought i'd share this,
Check this lyric from the song: " I can "
A quote from the New York and worldwide artist: " Nas. "
He is an intellectual emcee, and is the known for his smarts, and as the "streets disciple".

NAS LYRICS

"I Can"

[Nas]

Be, before we came to this country
We were kings and queens, never porch monkeys
There was empires in Africa called Kush
Timbuktu, where every race came to get books
To learn from black teachers who taught Greeks and Romans
Asian Arabs and gave them gold when
Gold was converted to money, it all changed
Money then became empowerment for Europeans
The Persian military invaded
They heard about the gold, the teachings, and everything sacred.
Africa was almost robbed naked
Slavery was money, so they began making slave ships
Egypt was the place that Alexander the Great went
He was so shocked at the mountains with black faces
Shot off they nose to impose, what basically
Still goes on today, you see?
If the truth is told, the youth can grow
Then learn to survive until they gain control
Nobody says you have to be gangstas, hoes
Read more learn more, change the globe
Ghetto children, do your thing
Hold your head up, little man, you're a king
Young Princess when you get your wedding ring
Your man is saying "She's my queeeen"

Obelix knocked it off while trying to climb the Sphinx; he thought he'd get a good view of the desert from the Sphinx's top(Asterix and Cleopatra). lol

Serously though, I don't believe Napolean's army knocked it off by using it as target practice. The nose wasn't there from much before Napolean's time.

If this is truth than French army are totaly idiots!!!!!

Whether it's true or not (and it appears not to be) the French army are total...

Napoleon actaully added neck support to the sphnix, because the head was close to falling off. You can tell where they added in, It's lighter and not detailed liek the rest of the Thing on his head.

i remember seeing on tv that the nose was knocked of by some old arab guy or somthing
for reasons i cant remember

at least its a good debate, i thought this thread would end within a day

You think it would be complete opposite though. I mean things that are usually exposed to the elements tend to errode more than things that aren't exposed. I wonder how that happpened?

The nose probably represented someone of Afrikan decent, that's why it was shot off.

That was bad done of Napoleon, what would you have done if you losed a nose. Poor, sphinx.

i have learnt that the noseless sphinx is because of the same reason one of the pyramids has a limestone top to it. someone stole it. but wereas they replaced the pyramid top, they jut simply didnt have enough workers (slaves) or enough limestone to build a new nose for the sphinx.

came to africa to learn from other races
shot the sphinx nose cause it looked like it had black faces

Actually its not just french soldiers that were implicated in this. Brittish and German troops, Mamelukes, Arab conquerors and Islamic Clerics (Sa'im al-dahr) have also been mentioned in literarture with the last 3 being actually more likely the perpetrators.

I believe that the official explanation still revolves around an erosion scenario due to the limestone material used for the nose. Being rather unsupported and prominent, resulted in being affected to larger extent from the extreme weather changes and sandstorms.

i thought some later pharoh had the face changed so its not the orignal face anyway

when i get enough money im going to eygpt to visit the pyramids.

I really don't have enough facts about the missing nose of the sphinx. I did catch a few Shows on discovery about the idea of it being broken off with some type of wedge tool (crowbar). They said they see signs of pressure being put on certain areas of the nose. I'm just curious about why nobody ever took the time to fix the nose after it appeared to be missing. u'd figure with the nose being so big that once the pharoh noticed it was missing that he could easily find it.

I'm not expert on this type of stuff, but it's a mystery that is probably better off not being solved.

i stole it

me2

egypt is number one on my travelling map.

I thought he shot it simply for target practece!

i was gunan say thats intesting about the nost, because i never heard they used it for shooting practice.. and yeah the sphinx was before the expedition, but could it of been used by napoleon in the earlier years?

maybe it sneezed real hard and blew it's own nose off!

LOL.

Woah, ur better than the divinci code.

I think you need a new history teacher. <g>

With his great love of history, Napoleon would not have permitted the mutilation of the Sphinx. Napoleon is argueably the founder of modern Egyptology and his great interest was in preserving history and NOT in defacing it.

Besides, early modern (16th and 17th Century) sketches of the Sphinx show that the nose was missing long before Napoleon's day.

The nose was apparently blasted away by Mameluke cannoneers during the late Middle Ages.

Here's a theory:maybe the sphinx represents a pharoah that wasn't liked and they destroyed the nose out of spite.

Personally I doubt the damage caused to the face of the Sphinx was a result of vandalism on the part of Napoleon's army for the simple reason that Napoleon included a team of Archeologists and Scientists in his Expeditionary force to Egypt specifically for the purpose of recording and studying ancient Egyptian history. This team included some very enlightened and skilled artists and scientists and much of their research and superb drawings laid the foundations for future Egyptology.